As a member of Eazy-E's Ruthless Records, G-funk pioneer Kokane helped the Godfather of Gangster Rap build a brand that would serve as the prototype for Hip Hop's independent label business model.

But with the buzzed about N.W.A biopic, which is being produced by Ice Cube's CubeVision production company, already in the casting process, Kokane worries that his former boss' legacy is being misrepresented.

In an exclusive interview with HipHopDX, the west coast crooner says he refuses to sit idly by.

"We put a proposal together called 'Protecting the Ruthless Legacy' that we want to get on The Arsenio Hall Show," said Kokane, whose critically new album, Shut da F#@! Up & Cut Da Checc, hit iTunes Jan. 14. "We gettin' it done right now as we speak. Everybody's agreed. And it's gonna be beautiful to see. We'll have all [Eazy’-Es] kids come on, MC Ren, Big Hutch, Yella, J.J. Fad and we're gonna tell the real story because, Ice Cube, I don't fault you for doing this movie. You're a genius, and you show that stereotypes can be lifted off of us, but at the same time you are doing something that's wrong and foul. You're purposely leaving out certain information that is vital to the story."

Kokane said that Ice Cube is making a movie without getting the facts from the people that witnessed it first-hand.

"It's sad cause you see Cube, you see all these people doing this N.W.A movie honoring Eazy, but they're not even getting internal,” Kokane said. "They're lying saying that they're getting in touch with people, but Eazy's children didn't even get a phone call. I didn't get a phone call. Above The Law didn't get a phone call and it's like they're doing it for profit, but they're not doing it authentically from the heart. It's unethical and it's foul. it's like you don't care. You guys care about getting money. But you know the good thing about it: There's always hope out there to have the real story told. It's increments. You gotta go back and touch the people if you wanna get the truth, because there's so much blockage as far as capital. It's a story that if it's told right and somebody can crack open this thing wide enough, everything else is gonna be the prototype for every other story. Trust me."

Kokane is looking to bring the West Coast full-circle with his new label, Bud E Boy Ent., which features a roster of artists and producers from various locations, including one that with ties to the past.

"I'm working with Eazy's son, E3, and he sounds just like his dad," Kokane said. "It's fitting because the way I'm running my company comes from the blueprint that Eric [Eazy-E's given name] started."

Universal Pictures is moving forward with an N.W.A. biopic, Straight Outta Compton, and has tapped Jonathan Herman to pen the latest draft.

Sources say the studio is in the process of picking up the title in turnaround from New Line, which had been developing it for years. F. Gary Gray is attached to helm the project, which traces the roots of the seminal rap group and their rise to fame.

The group's original members were Arabian Prince, DJ Yella, Dr. Dre, Eazy-E, and Ice Cube, who is producing the film with his Cube Vision partner Matt Alvarez. MC Ren joined N.W.A. in 1988, with Arabian Prince decamping later that year. Ice Cube left in December of 1989 over royalty disputes. Several other members launched successful solo careers in the 1990s. Eazy-E died in 1995 due to AIDS-related causes. Also producing are Eazy-E’s widow, Tomica Woods, and Dr. Dre under his Crucial Films banner. Will Packer is executive producing.

Andrew Berloff penned a previous draft of the script, which takes place on the violence-plagued streets of L.A.'s Compton neighborhood. Considered one of the most influential acts of the gangsta rap and West Coast hip hop sub-genres, N.W.A. changed rap and pop culture with lyrics highlighting social commentary, leading up to the L.A. riots.

Universal's Scott Bernstein and Sara Scott are poised to shepherd the project for the studio.

Herman has been on a roll at Universal, where he most recently was hired to rewrite the psychological thriller Demonologists for Robert Zemeckis' ImageMovers. He also wrote an untitled hacker film that Mark Wahlberg and Stephen Levinson are producing that is loosely based on a GQ article titled "The Hacker Is Watching." Herman also wrote a draft of Universal's remake of Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds that Platinum Dunes is producing with Mandalay.

He is repped by WME, Stephen Crawford at Industry and attorney Melissa Rogal at Lichter, Grossman.

Re: "Straight Outta Compton" / 2015 /

Still waiting on the verdict if it's gonna be shown at the movies in Sweden. If not, then I'll wait till it's released on Blu-ray and buy it and ad it to my collection. I so would like to see it at the movies! Just got to keep my fingers crossed and hope that Universal Pictures understands that people wanna see that movie here too...

Re: "Straight Outta Compton" / 2015 /

Originally Posted by frolunda71

Still waiting on the verdict if it's gonna be shown at the movies in Sweden. If not, then I'll wait till it's released on Blu-ray and buy it and ad it to my collection. I so would like to see it at the movies! Just got to keep my fingers crossed and hope that Universal Pictures understands that people wanna see that movie here too...

Bummer. And just the other day the head of Universal said that "Straight Outta Compton" is the type of movie that would do very well overseas. Because, obviously, hip-hop is global. Yet there are many countries that don't have release dates for it.

I don't get it. Sure, this is not "Avengers" or "Transformers" but as the opening weekend (and the social media buzz) proved there is a huge audience for this movie. And not only in the US.

"You know why the departures and the arrivals at LAX are on separate levels? So the 30,000 heartbreakers that come here each month don't notice the 30,000 that are leaving with their hearts broken."

Re: "Straight Outta Compton" / 2015 /

The verdict is in. We're going to be able to see it at the movies!! It premiers on 11th of September! If it weren't for the money it pulled during the first week in the US, we would have had to wait for the DVD/Blu-ray release before we would have been able to see the movie.

Re: "Straight Outta Compton"

With two back-to-back summers in which Warners — typically the No. 1 studio in market share — had trailed at No. 3, this weekend seemed especially depressing. It wasn't just that Guy Ritchie's big-budget spy caper The Man From U.N.C.L.E. imploded with a $13.4 million domestic opening (hope that it might be redeemed internationally faded fast), it also was trounced by an urban rap biopic that Warners had put in turnaround — the $29 million Straight Outta Compton.

After years of development, New Line Cinema president Toby Emmerich and other top Warners executives reluctantly let Compton go to Universal, believing its budget was too high. (Emmerich mercifully was on vacation in Italy when the movie opened Aug. 14.) Universal reveled in its $60.2 domestic million opening. So did producers Dr. Dre and Ice Cube, each of whom reportedly deferred an estimated $2.5 million in fees and now will reap the benefits. And so, too, will Thomas Tull's Legendary Pictures, which caught flak for ditching Warners for Universal in 2013 but now has a 50 percent investment in Compton (and a big chunk of Jurassic World's $1.61 billion worldwide gross).

On January 27, 1991, at a record-release party for the rap duo Bytches With Problems in Hollywood, producer/rapper/then-N.W.A. member Dr. Dre brutally attacked Dee Barnes, the host of a well-known Fox show about hip-hop called Pump It Up! Dre was reportedly angry about a Pump It Up! segment hosted by Barnes that aired in November 1990. The report focused on N.W.A., and concluded with a clip of Ice Cube, who had recently left the group, insulting his former colleagues. Soon after the attack, Barnes described it in interviews: She said Dre attempted to throw her down a flight of stairs, slammed her head against a wall, kicked her, and stomped on her fingers. Dre later told Rolling Stone, “It ain’t no big thing – I just threw her through a door.” He pleaded no contest to assault charges. Barnes’s civil suit against Dre was settled out of court.

Barnes agreed to watch F. Gary Gray’s just-released film about N.W.A, Straight Outta Compton, and reflect on it for Gawker.

Re: "Straight Outta Compton" / 2015 /

The former rap mogul is also awaiting trial for murder in connection with a hit and run that happened during filming.

Conflicts arising from Straight Outta Compton have sparked a parade of legal nightmares for Marion "Suge" Knight — the latest of which saw him arraigned in an L.A. courtroom Thursday morning for allegedly threatening that film's director, F. Gary Gray.

Knight was indicted in February on a charge of violating California's Penal Code 422(a), which involves willful threats "to commit a crime which will result in death or great bodily injury to another person." He was allegedly unhappy with his portrayal in the film and threatened Gray via text message in August 2014.

He's also awaiting a 2018 trial for the murder of Terry Carter and attempted murder of Cle "Bone" Sloan, for which Knight plead not guilty. Knight pulled up to a Compton burger stand in January 2015 and fled after a brief conflict, running over both men.

The former rap mogul has also been fighting civil legal battles on several fronts, involving Dr. Dre, Chris Brown and Scott Storch — not to mention the wrongful death lawsuit he's facing from Carter's family.